by Noel Loomis
Pardee swore and said, “You talk like an old fool. Let’s be gettin’ on.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and sloshed a slippery path back to his wagon. The mules were started again.
Half an hour later the gloom ahead of the teamsters lightened a trifle and it wasn’t long after that before they sighted Shoulder Bluff, silhouetted against a faint reddish luminosity. Light gleamed dimly on wet steel tracks and to the right of these Corny Callahan and Pardee sighted the landslide of tumbled boulders and heaped wet earth. Rounding the huge pile they came within view of the train. Red fuses had been placed at the rear of the train and ahead of the landslide across the right-of-way, casting a sort of eerie light over the scene. A spiral of slow smoke rose lazily from the funnel-shaped stack of the locomotive, with its T.N. & A.S. R.R. painted in bold white letters on the side of the cab, showing plainly in the sizzling light of a flare.
Callahan, followed by Pardee, tooled his mules carefully around the helter-skelter tumble of rocks strewn across tracks and beyond into the mesquite and crushed spots of brush and cactus, taking in, as he reined the team this way and that, the two telegraph poles down with their tangled wires snapped against a boulder the size of a small house. Callahan, with Pardee’s wagon at his rear, pulled to a halt alongside the locomotive, and raised his eyes to see the conductor, engineer and fireman staring down at him from the engine’s cab. No one spoke for a minute.
Then Callahan said gravely, “Would you be likin’ me, gents, to hitch on my kittens and be haulin’ that billy-be-damned tea-kittle out of the mess you’re after-r-r findin’ yourselves in—”
“Where the devil did you come from on a night like this?” the conductor demanded. He was a thin, middle-aged man with a gold watch chain stretching across his vest. His eyes bugged out.
“And this is no tea-kettle,” the overalled engineer said grumpily.
“’Tis as much good as a tea-kittle would be doin’ you in the situation you be findin’ yoursilves,” Callahan responded genially. “In the old days, now, ye’d not be seein’ of no jerk-line freighter hauled up short by a molehill I’m after-r seein’ athwart your tracks. A leap and a bound and we’d be after clearin’ the top of the mess. It would be takin’ more’n a couple of pebbles and a fistful of dirt to be detainin’ of us in thim days. Why—”
The engineer felt his ire rising. He was about to speak when the conductor asked, “What you fellows want here, anyway?”
“We’re after seekin’ Conductor Fraley of eastbound freight train number twenty-four. ’Tis the orders of the station agent at Clarion City we’re after-r-r carryin’ out—”
“I’m Fraley,” the conductor said shortly. “What do you—what’s the station agent want?”
Callahan continued, “We’ve come to relieve you of some of your freight which is bad needed to send on its way, and to tell you a work train to clear the track is bein’ sent t’once, and it’s been a sore-bad trip for us from Clarion and the sooner we finish the business the better all around. So let us get started.” He squirmed around on the driver’s seat, to speak to Pardee. “Ain’t that right. Ringbone?”
Pardee nodded sulkily without reply and spat a long stream of tobacco juice to splash on the side of the locomotive. The conductor’s jaw dropped open. The engineer exclaimed unbelievingly, “But—but how could you get here so soon? This slide just—”
“So soon, is ut?” Callahan gave a scornful laugh. “Soon, ye calls it. And with me and Ringbone a-swimmin’ our mules through a pitch-black torrent for comin’ on three hours to get here—”
“By God,” the fireman pushed into the conversation. “I could have swore that slide hadn’t happened but a minute or so before we got here. There was still some small rocks tumbling down—”
“I saw that myself,” the engineer interposed. “The headlight showed plain—”
The conductor got into the conversation again: “That must have been some sort of small secondary slide, George”—to the engineer. “This teamster says he was ordered out from Clarion City some two or three hours back. The station agent there sends word a work train is on the way to clear the tracks. Jeepers! If I’d known that I’d not have sent Witt walking that long distance to Clarion—”
“Your brakie can flag down the work train when it comes along,” the fireman put in. “He’ll be mighty wet by that time, of course.”
“I’ve been thinking,” the engineer said. “It’s after midnight now. There’s been no train through here, eastbound, for nearly eight hours. Must be the eight-thirty-seven westbound discovered this slide and backed up to Clarion City—”
The conductor swore irritably. “All right, they knew about it. Why weren’t we flagged down, back there at Arvila? Seems they could have got word to Arvila station somehow.”
“Was you after stoppin’ at Arvila?” Callahan asked.
The conductor said shortly, “Arvila’s just a watering station. Eastbounds don’t stop there—just westbounds before they hit that grade beyond—”
“I know that agent at Arvila,” the fireman put in. “He’s got a habit of hitting the jug while on duty. Might have been asleep when we balled through.”
“Which is all neither the here or there, as I’m seein’ ut,” Callahan stated. “Me and Ringbone is gettin’ wetter by the minute. ’Tis settled there’s a landslide. ’Tis also settled no work train on this blessed earth is going to clear the way for you the nixt ten hours or more. The drinkin’ man at Arvila is not our problem. So would you please be lettin’ us have the load we was sent to haul, so’s we can be gittin’ back to a dry bed and a nip of the creature.”
“What in the devil load you talking about?” the conductor asked testily.
Callahan started to answer, then paused and withdrew from within his faded shirt a roll of oilcloth, which had managed to keep reasonably dry the papers he carried. The small square of oilcloth was unrolled and the papers passed up to the conductor. A lantern was held high and the fireman and engineer stood close while the conductor perused his papers. Quite suddenly the conductor swore a violent oath.
“What’s wrong, Sam?” the engineer asked.
For a few minutes the conductor could only stutter. Then, with an effort he calmed himself. “This is from the station agent at Clarion City. He got orders from Tyrus Wolcott himself to hire teamsters to come out here and take some of our freight off our hands. Seems said freight is to be taken to Clarion City ‘with all dispatch.’ That’s what it says here. There is to be no waiting for the work train to clear the tracks.” The conductor started to swear again.
“You take my advice,” the engineer said, “and you’ll follow old Tyrant Wolcott’s orders to the letter. What’s the old buzzard got aboard this train—a shipment of gold bars?”
“Yeah,” the fireman put in. “When Tyrant Wolcott snaps the whip, you’d better jump fast. How that mean old skunk ever got to be manager of the Clarin Division, I’ll never know.”
“Damned if I’ll do it,” the conductor said wrathfully. “It means opening a car and—”
“Maybe you’d sooner have a sixty-day layoff, Sam,” the engineer reminded. “It don’t pay to trifle with Wolcott’s orders. What’s the freight, anyway? Must be mighty precious.”
More profanity from the conductor. Disgustedly he said, “Precious your hind leg! Strawberry jam, that’s what it is! Strawberry and plum preserves! Peach preserves! All canned stuff, boxed. Down from some company in ’Frisco, consigned to Chicago. Now what in the devil would Wolcott want—”
“You’d best obey orders, Sam,” the engineer advised.
“Crazy orders, if you ask me,” the conductor snapped. “It goes against the grain to open a car just to satisfy some whim of Wolcott’s. I know my business. Opening a car is against company policy unless—”
“Onless,” Callahan interrupted, “it’s on the big boss’s orders. Now you can do as this Wolcott spalpeen says or not, jist as pleases you, Mister Conductor, jist so’s you let me and Ringbo
ne have your decision within the next month or so. One way or t’other, we’re wantin’ to be on our way. Do we get this load to be haulin’ back, or don’t we? Not that we be givin’ a damn. The railroad is hirin’ of us and our mules, and the railroad will be payin’. Is it that you’d be spendin’ good railroad money to see us haul back and no load at all?”
That settled it. The conductor grouched some more before he reluctantly climbed down from the locomotive cab, then led the way, the two wagons following, toward the end of the train. They passed boxcars, gondolas and loaded flat cars on the way. At the caboose, a brakeman with a red lantern took form. The conductor entered his caboose and consulted papers, then re-emerged. With the brakeman’s help, one of the boxcars was entered. Freight was shifted around. A number of wooden boxes—there couldn’t have been more than twenty—weighing around fifty pounds each, were divided equally between the two wagons. With the aid of the two teamsters, the work was quickly accomplished. In lifting one box to his wagon, Ringbone Pardee dropped it to the earth. The heavy box struck a chunk of rock and splintered open. The top board of the box came loose. Cans spilled out on the soggy earth. Cursing, Ringbone dropped from the wagon, retrieved all cans he saw, and crammed them, helter-skelter, back into the damaged box. In time the load was stacked on the wagons, Callahan signed a receipt for the freight, and the two wagons once more got under way on their return trip.
Darkness again settled down on the teamsters, as they left the lights at the scene of the landslide behind. The rain had slacked off to a steady drizzle by this time, and the wind had dropped considerably. Realizing they were homeward bound, the mule teams bent stoutly to their task. Loaded as the wagons were, they were making better time now. Once, Callahan twisted around on the driver’s seat and called back to Pardee, “Most all downgrade goin’ now, my bucko, clear to Clarion.”
“Tell me somethin’ I don’t know,” Pardee replied ungraciously. “It’s damn’ wet either way.”
Callahan settled to his driving. “There’s the hell of a lot,” he muttered, “that I could tell you and you not knowin’ of it.”
They advanced another half mile with no word between them. After a time, Callahan spoke to his companion again: “Mind ye don’t force your team into that big rock, like ye did comin’ up,” he warned. “It’s jist ahead of hereabouts some place. Jist give your kittens their head this time.”
A tall upthrust of granite, rising from the soaked earth, loomed up through the darkness a minute later. “Here ’tis,” Callahan shouted back as his team swerved to avoid the rock towering above his head. He pushed on past, then, warned by some inner sense, started to turn on his seat. In the abrupt flare of gunfire he caught a brief glimpse of a man and saddled horse, before something smashed violently into his body.
A choked “Dry-gulched, b’Gawd,” left his lips as he started to rise from the driver’s seat. He felt himself toppling back and back against the boxes in the bed of the wagon, even as one hand clawed at the ancient six-shooter in holster. His yell of warning to Pardee was interrupted by a second explosion, and he knew his warning had been useless.
Then silence. Somehow, Callahan managed to extricate himself from the bed of the wagon and reach the ground. There was a warm stickiness within his shirt now mingling with the wetness of rain-soaked garments. Forty-five in hand, he swayed against the side of the wagon, peering through the darkness for a target. He fired once in the direction where he had first seen the man and horse, but the flame from the gun showed him nothing.
He’d a feeling he couldn’t last much longer. Somewhere, behind the tall rock was the hidden assassin. From Pardee’s wagon came a long-drawn moan. The thought went through Callahan’s head that Ringbone hadn’t even had time to draw before being hit. Callahan was growing lightheaded now, his strength was slipping fast. With Irish tenacity he decided to get Pardee’s gun and with his own weapon make a stand against the unknown assailant.
Slipping, sliding, he made his way back to Pardee, reached through the darkness to the wagon seat. “You—hurt—bad, Ringbone?”
A groan, then, “Sorry—I—crabbed ’bout this job…”
A choked gurgling ended the words.
“Sorry as hell I got you into this, Ringbone.” This time Callahan’s voice came, clearer, but Pardee was beyond hearing.
Consciousness was going fast, but doggedly Callahan strove to turn away from the wagon and face the enemy. He was gasping terribly now, forty-five dangling in right hand. His left hand on one wagon wheel held him in a swaying position. Then came the third shot, smashing through flesh and bone between the shoulder blades.
And Corny Callahan too died.
CHAPTER 2
A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE
The heat of the day hadn’t yet made the front wall of El Paso’s Grand Central Hotel untenable for the loungers who gathered there each day to bask in the reflected morning sunlight from the plaza adjoining and exchange gossip. Consequently, there came a sudden cessation of conversation and a craning of masculine heads when the girl emerged from the lobby entrance. A tall girl she was, unusually tall, with shoulders wider than most, but an excellent figure withal. A range-bred girl, one of the loungers guessed, not accustomed to city ways.
“Got a good stride on her,” a man observed, “like her laigs ain’t used to bein’ confined in sech a long skirt.”
“Yeah,” his companion agreed, “like a filly thet’s been hobbled.”
“Quite a chunk of woman—a man’s woman, I’d say,” from another source, and an oldster cackled, “Boys, thet’s some female.”
And still another lounger commented—he may have possessed the soul of a poet without knowing it—“I’ve seen yeller cactus blossoms jist thet same color as her hair. Seems like, with all that pale yeller hair, she’d look better ’thout that little doodad of a bonnet with all them vi’lets spilled over it.”
“Don’t seem like she should be wearin’ no hat,” the man adjacent observed. “Town clothes don’t seem to be right fer her. I’d give a purty to see her on a hawss. Speakin’ of hawsses…”
But the others weren’t listening as they continued to watch the girl as, with erect shoulders and lifted chin, she steered a diagonal course across the plaza and started along San Francisco Street. A jangling sound caught her ear and she turned her head to see a mule-drawn streetcar rumbling past. She gave it only brief scrutiny. If El Paso’s busy streets with its buildings, pedestrians, wagons and buggies impressed her in any way, she failed to show it. Life in the city seemed to flow over and around her without touching her in any way, as though her own immediate problems so obsessed her that all outside activity was without consequence.
Within seven or eight minutes after leaving the Grand Central, she arrived at the offices of the Texas Northern & Arizona Southern Railroad and asked to see Mr. Jay Fletcher. Mr. Fletcher, a clerk informed her, was not in at present. Would anyone else do? The girl replied that she’d like to see Mr. Gregory Quist. The clerk smiled a trifle. Mr. Quist, he informed her, rarely came to these offices. He had his own office at his hotel, where he lived. Upon further query, the clerk gave her the necessary directions for finding the Pierson Hotel. The tall girl thanked him shortly and departed.
Fifteen or twenty minutes later the girl reached the corner of St. Louis and Kansas Streets, where a recently erected brick building bore a sign proclaiming it to be the Pierson Hotel. Here there were more men lounging about, but the girl didn’t seem aware of their stares as she entered, crossed to the lobby desk and inquired for Mr. Gregory Quist. The spectacled desk clerk eyed her a moment longer than was necessary, then,
“Yes, Mr. Quist is in. Whom shall I tell him is—”
“What’s his room number?” she interrupted crisply.
Taken aback by her tone, he gave a number on the second floor, before recovering himself. “I’ll send word up at once, Miss—Miss?”
“Don’t bother. I know how to count,” the girl said tartly, turning toward the carpeted
stairway to the second floor.
A horrified look crossed the clerk’s face. “But—but—wait a minute, miss. You shouldn’t go up to his room—”
The girl spoke over her shoulder as she reached the first step, “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt him.”
The clerk gasped and lost his voice as she disappeared up the stairway, then turned a sort of shocked expression on the few men around the lobby. All of them were grinning at him. One said something pertaining to “a well-turned ankle,” and someone else commented on Greg Quist’s attraction for pretty women.
Arriving on the second floor, the girl strode along a corridor until she’d reached a door near the rear of the building. Here she rapped on the panel. Instantly, a voice from within bade her to “Come on in.”
The girl entered, closing the door behind her, and found herself in a room again as large as the ordinary hotel chamber. There were the usual furnishings—dresser, bed, wash-stand; carpet on the floor; a couple of straight-backed chairs and a rocker; a small table held an oil lamp. There was a stand for hanging clothing. At the rear of the room, placed between two open windows, were a roll-top desk and swivel armchair. Seated at the desk, engaged in writing a letter, was Gregory Quist. At his right hand was a half-finished glass of beer, and several beer bottles, both full and empty, stood within reach.
Without glancing around at his visitor, Quist spoke over his shoulder. “Find a seat. I’ll be with you when I finish this.” There was a sort of musical quality to his low, resonant voice, as though the tones welled deep from his thick chest.
The girl flushed, but remained standing, as though a bit uncertain, now that she was here. Her gaze strayed through the open window at Quist’s left, seeing without being conscious of seeing, the wide stretch of undulating wasteland of gray alkali soil, cactus and mesquite where it stretched in a northwesterly direction to Franklin Mountain. Nearer the hotel were unpaved streets lined with adobe structures, with here and there a frame or brick house rising above its lower neighbors. Faint sounds rose from the street immediately below.